======================= HES POSTING ================= Thomas Moser and I may be talking past each other. He suggests that legal history begins with a concern about markets. I do not know much about that subject, but I suspect that the law, like the church, was concerned with controlling the spread of the market in order to mintain traditional society. Tony Brewer tells us, "Agriculture was thoroughly commercialized by the sixteenth/seventeenth century." I do not deny that there was commercialization, but what does that mean? If a women took a few eggs to market, is her farm a commercial operation? Or do we think of the commercialization as operating on the periphery of their agricultural economy? I agree with Olav Velthuis that we cannot easily divide all societies into commercial/non-commercial categories, but Polanyi's work might help us to put the manic commericalization of our world into perspective. Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University E-Mail [log in to unmask] ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]